How do you make a river
by Samir Metta · in Torque Game Engine · 07/09/2007 (2:17 pm) · 3 replies
I've tried with the book "Guide to Torque" but it only does like "mirror water plates". How do you get deeper and more structurated water in order to form a river. Thanks
Torque Owner Mitovo
Water in Unreal 2 tech is actually achieved via 2 separate entities: a water surface mesh and a water volume area. This combination allows for a good variety of water settings that weren't possible with the more static, BSP system they used in Unreal 1 tech.
Here's a "for example". There's one UT2k4 map where the entire river is actually a pre-modeled, UV mapped mesh with multi-textured water flowing over it. Thanks to the UV mapping, the water appears to flow correctly, following the contours of the river banks, instead of in a single "panning direction" where it looks like it's flowing straight into and through the river banks. Further, by squashing and/or stretching UV coordinates appropriately in the modeling app, you can have the water appear to speed up or slow down in given areas.
Theoretically, I suppose you could do something like this in TGE.
If you set up a water block just beneath the surface of your river mesh, but apply no textures to it, it would basically provide a water volume area which, from outside, appears invisible. The 3D river mesh would simulate the water surface and the "invisible" water volume would allow for underwater physics, rendering, etc.
Additionally, if you *really* wanted to get fancy, you can animate vertices in the water mesh in a sort of sine pattern to create the effect of turbulence, and you could also add things like boulders, having the water displaced around them (again, through UV mapping), with a sort of particle system simulating the water splashing over them.
Again, in theory, I don't see why this couldn't be done in TGE; though I haven't actually tried it myself yet.